Heartbeat Come Undone
by The Very Last Valkyrie
Summary: The sequel to 'These Strings That Bind' and 'And Tear Us Apart Again' - a compilation of vignettes which span C/B's past, present and future with more than enough room left over for drama, tears, laughter and love. Vive l'amour.
1. Long Live Love

**Long Live Love**

She doesn't smoke - but when she does, she doesn't inhale.

There's a pause between _Bart_ and _Uncle Jack_ when Eric and Serena tap tentatively on the door of Blair's bedroom and find her lying on the floor with her bare feet resting on the bedspread, smoking a leisurely joint and quietly assessing the ceiling. When they ask what she's doing, her reply is simple: 'trying to get closer to God' (in other words, trying to get closer to Chuck). She is drowning, so nonplussed despite Eric's presence that all she does is calmly inquire as to whether they'd like to join her.

Serena does for Blair's sake.

Eric does for Chuck's.

They form her walls, her sides; they hold her together as Blair smokes until the remnants are frizzy with use and her pupils are black and dilated.

Eric can't help thinking that this must be the reason that people talk about them (him and her, _ChuckandBlair__BlairandChuck_) in hushed dark voices with reverent, irreverent looks: she's played dice with the Devil and won, and he's pulled down the last archangel and besmirched her white goodness with every colour of the rainbow.

_Fin._


	2. You Know My Name

_**Well, this is just about as AU as it comes. Think Hellboy and Stalker!Chuck, think Liz and Needy!Blair (think Bruce Wayne and Edward Cullen on crack). Think bizarre thoughts involving either Chuck or Blair or both of them. Eat ice cream. Don't ask about the ending, it was always that weird.  
Enjoy.**_

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**You Know My Name  
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He owns the world, but has nothing - _nothing_ - of his own.

He wants her.

He wants November.

He traces the line of her cheek on the monitor, the indistinct pucker that marks her mouth. Her lips are soft in his mind, cherry red and begging to be kissed. He doesn't know her name, but he doesn't really care; she's November, pulled from a list of 'on this day' birthday pages and idolised. The monitors scream her name at him, his wallpaper a spy camera shot of a laughing girl in a blue coat with half her pretty friend's face cropped to make it all about her: November.

Most days, he watches her. Sometimes, he follows her as she goes about her day. She's in her freshman year at Columbia, friends who are more like handmaidens trailing in her wake. They don't matter because they're moths, and she's a butterfly - dark hair and dark eyes like he's never seen, and he's never seen her mouth painted like it is in his dreams, parted and waiting and wanting: _him_. Oh, November, no love for he who has a name but chooses not to disclose it. Other women are nothing though they are attracted to his flame, more moths without her peacock bright beauty to mark her and draw him in. How bright she shines, both day and night, as he languishes with his eyes on her face and her beauty - blazing, bright - before him.

She goes through life almost sure that she's being watched. Things happen that shouldn't: things are paid for and left with her doorman and the perfect dress arrives for the perfect occasion that she might dance out of sight in crowded ballrooms, eyes watching her that she can never quite identify.

"May I have this dance?"

She's wearing red, bright as her painted lips.

"It's you, isn't it." Her heart races, and her tongue is dry. "You're the one."

"Yes."

"Why?"

"I know you," he tells her. "There is no one else for me...no one but you."

Why license him to kiss her, when she can do all alone; the slight press of her lips to the side of his mouth, gentle and half a kiss, and then bolder, fusing her bloody mouth with his: November coming unto May, heavy and light like oil in water.

"Chuck," she whispers.

"Blair," he breathes.

They freeze.

_Fin._


	3. Such Is The Case With Persons Of Grace

**_Last night's epi was such a blast from the past - an NJBC smackdown, Serena wearing a semi-appropriate dress (though a full length skirt would have been nicer than one which barely covered her macaron) and we're back to 'Waldorf' and 'Bass'. How I've missed those pseudonyms, but I'm glad they saved them for such an important moment. Chuck and Blair have never stopped being in love, but I feel like we're back in season one again: facing two fresh-faced teenagers who are just realising that lust isn't the only thing they feel for each other. Their kiss in this epi reminded me of their first, and that's what inspired this.  
Enjoy._**

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**Such Is The Case With Persons Of Grace**

"Well, that was..."

"Friendly."

"Mmmm."

When he is still and intent, sometimes she thinks she can hear cogs turning; this time, she can only hear his heartbeat. She's almost too afraid to move, lost in the promise of whatever pain and anger and hatred have become. Passion's flame burns brightest within them, it always has - this came later, this silence and quiet reverie.

"What are you thinking?"

Her hair was pulled down by one of them at some point, and lies in a glorious riot of curls across the fair skin over her spine. "I said we'd come full circle: sex in the limo, nothing but sex..."

"And now this."

"Yes."

Tangled; that's the best way to describe them, tangled together. The step between what they had and what they are lies in this intermingling, in the desperation that has fallen away and left the room full of moonlight. She brushes her foot lightly against his calf and he strokes back her hair noncommittally, like they have all the time in the world. He's wrong, and she knows it. There's only ever been so long with them in the afterglow before feelings start kicking in and biting them both in the ass (and damn it, Serena's right, because any feelings between Chuck and Blair tend to make them into _ChuckandBlair_, which is never a good idea).

"I can't help it," she says softly. "I can't help but feel seventeen with you."

"Things haven't changed that much," he replies. "And just because we don't say so doesn't mean it isn't true."

_The reason we can't say those three words to each other isn't because they aren't true._

_Three words; eight letters. Say it...and I'm yours._

_I love you too._

_Fin.  
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	4. Take The Time To Show You're Mine

**_It appears that I can't stop talking about the sweetness of CB. Who didn't love that final scene in 4x08, to be fair - I don't think they've ever been that sweet with each other, except maybe back in the days of shoulder kissing and quotes about beauty and Erickson Beamon. I wrote last chapter about the afterglow (and eerily prophetically enough, afterward I wrote an accidental 'I love you' scene before I'd even seen the promo, because _bethaboo_ and I have murdered two writers and assumed their positions on the Grand High Council of GG), so I thought I'd write about the deed itself. The title is taken from the song playing at the time, 'Blue Moon' by Kendal Johansson.  
Enjoy._**

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**Take The Time To Show You're Mine**

Friends with benefits is very different to enemies with benefits - touch is slower, feather strokes, drops of mercury; they can count each breath, each breathless word half-spoken or never said at all. The process is slow and earnest, beautiful in its simplicity. Strength pours into the void between them, sealing it shut: friends, not now together but certainly not apart. Moonlight drenches the room, blue and mystic.

The darkness inside his own head is complete, sight and sound obscured by sensation - they've never been this way before, just him and her: _they_. There is a possibility for amicability here, for courtesy and sincerity even in the most godless of acts. Has God abandoned him? He doesn't really care. There's no room for the promise of something greater, something more intangible in this moment (which is in itself a promise wrapped around an enigma, intwertwined and whispered in his ear like a fairytale). If he closes his eyes, he'll see it; he sees much better when she isn't there to blind him, after all.

There are always two people at war within her: the girl they know and the one that others do. She offers herself to be kissed, to be tempted in the guise of her own body, in the space where woman and machine divide. She's not a robot, and she's not a monster, and there's never been any contestation as to what moments like these transform her into. She will bend, and she will break, and she will fall away into pieces on demand. She has been a part of something - inflexible, inorganic - and she will become a part of someone: homemade, whole, choices just glittering shards upon the battleground.

When they pray, it is for perfect symbiosis (where dissidence is lost and weapons laid down, because _they are loved_).

_Fin._


	5. Asseyez Vous

**_Dedicated to the darling comewhatmay.x, who deserves a present after our midnight conversations about shoes in French and that crazy dog ruining her beauty sleep. We Twitter lovies are an odd bunch.  
Enjoy.  
_**

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**Asseyez-Vous**

He spits blood onto her fingers, and she winces.

"Up, Chuck."

He's never been very good at the 'bend knee, lift foot' part of this equation.

"Where to, Miss Waldorf?"

Or at remembering quite how she managed to stuff, roll and otherwise manoeuvre him into the limo.

"My building, Arthur."

He comes to - insofar as one can come to when already awake, only beaten to a pulp and too drunk to feel it - with his head in her lap, no look of tender concern in the eyes that behold him. She's more inclined to fury in such situations, and rightly so (he really must get around to removing her name as his emergency contact, but truth be told there's no angel of mercilessness he'd rather see more in his hour of need).

"You're awake."

"So it appears."

"Don't be smart."

Her mouth is a petite _moue_ of annoyance, bare out of bed and sugar pink. He'd rather like to lick it.

"You're in my limo again."

"Because some idiot called me to tell me that my boyfriend had been in a bar fight, and before I could tell him that I am no longer your responsible adult he had put the phone down."

"That must have been terrible for you."

"Shut up."

Nonetheless, she still strokes the hair back off his brow, lays her cool fingers gently across a lesion which is thin and fierce. He closes his eyes for a moment, and feels calm - because if he is a savage beast, then she certainly is some form of aria designed to soothe him - stealing through him in a seductive wave.

"I can smell your perfume."

"I can smell the better part of a distillery."

"Why are you taking me home with you?"

She seems too absorbed in what she is doing to reply, and her rage is only multiplied when she realises he's caught her bothering to care.

"I am not planning on taping you up with bowties and half a bottle of scotch poured over your head."

"So you're planning to do it with La Perlas and half a bottle of Dom?"

Thump - they stop, and his head hits the seat.

"Your tender care really is exemplary."

"Walk."

How many times has he staggered with his arm around these slender shoulders, hands that don't look capable of holding up a fly calling his bluff and forcing him into health once again? He doesn't know. She shoots a dark look at the doorman who dared to greet her, continues on her way and they ride the elevator in silence. Once inside the penthouse, he can't help but cast a nostalgic look towards the piano (and the couch, and over by the window, and up the stairs, and on the stairs themselves - basically every surface and/or lack of one) before she drags him up the slow curve which leads to her en suite and dumps him in the bath.

Only Blair Waldorf, however, would be cruel enough to turn the shower on him.

"What the -"

"Sober up, Basshat."

He splutters with his spray in his face, waits for her to pause and then glares. She smiles benignly back (what a bitch) and then starts her work, pouring a variety of unguents over his head and beginning to work them in with deft fingers.

"Why are you -"

"Your hair has half a bar floor in it."

The woman was born to do this (again, what a bitch), these gentle sweeps and tiny pockets of pressure applied and released like acupuncture. The throbbing in his head lessens as she works, even as she pours something which stings and which he doesn't dare open his eyes to see over the cuts on his temple.

"You'll have a beautiful black eye."

"You have beautiful eyes."

"Shush."

She hoses him down eventually, peels off his wet shirt and dangles her legs over the lip of the tub, kicking them lightly back and forth as they examine each other. God, he must be drunk, because there's spray from the shower glittering in her hair and it looks like she's smiling. She holds up one hand.

"How many fingers?"

"Five."

"Good Bass."

Those five brush lightly over the crown of his head as she leaves, bustles about and then returns with a clean towel and her robe.

"You can stay."

And are those choirs of angels he can hear?

"But if you dare try and have sex with me even _once_, I will murder you slowly with the bluntest implement I can find."

It must just be the ringing in his ears.

They sleep eventually, grudgingly, his larger body set to curve around her smaller one. He admires the nape of her neck for a good few minutes before pressing his face to the dark mass of hair and letting her beguile him, bewitch him, draw him into sleep with the familiarity of her softness, the warmth of each quiet breath.

That night, he lets her sleep.

The next morning, he thanks her properly.

_Fin._


	6. White Chocolate

_**The equally fabulous **_**comewhatmay.x_ and SaturnineSunshine did a half hour fic challenge with me last night, and I spewed out this - what began as a Chuck character sketch and ended as pre-series Chair. Written by the light of a vanilla candle with Death Cab F__o__r Cutie's 'I Will Follow You Into The Dark' playing in the background._**

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**White Chocolate**

Lace; black lace is fanned out across her thighs like a spider's web across a rack, lump forming in his throat to torture him into submission, the same submissiveness which makes him sick to the stomach, breathe on the mirror and write her name in the steam: _Blair Waldorf. Queen B. I'd do her. I'd fuck her. Bitch._ It kills him and he sometimes just smashes the mirror for the pleasure he gets from seeing her face shatter with the glass. There is nothing darker than her sainted grace, nothing but pure insanity from between parted red lips, breathed out like smoke and straight in his face.

He sees her through the eyes of a child, in the mind of a child, with wide open eyes and slick palms and a racing heartbeat. He drinks her away, hurls her into the drain when he sees his mother flicker across that pretty face.

So he drinks.

And he fucks.

That's him, basically.

The outside world is hard – _too_ hard, somehow – for an Orpheus to walk alone, and everything he charms with his music becomes hard and cold, snakes slithering over snakes and writhing around the apple, the eye of the target and the eye of the storm: _don't say her name._ What if the dark days come on his day, the day Hell hurled him out and tore the woman who bore him into a battered, bloody mess and sucked out her soul? He makes it clear he wants to be alone; she leaves the same voicemail every damn year, rain or shine.

"It's still your birthday, Chuck. Call me."

They smoke together occasionally – who do you think taught her to roll a joint, Nathaniel? – and sometimes she giggles like the girl she really is and not the doll she's painted into, corseted and cosseted with white lines of perfection which glitter like divided coke on the piano lid. She sat there once, bare painted toes pressing down on the keys while he attempted Moon River, stoned to high heaven. She laughed, and lay back to close her eyes.

He saw up her skirt.

White lace, holy mother of God.

In the name of the Father he tries not to be himself. In the name of the Son, he will drink himself to death one day, curl up into a ball and never rise again. He wonders what her voicemail will be then, what they could have been – but that's stupid after all, frigid bitch, cold from the knees up and fit only to freeze and crack him open. There are so many others, warm and welcoming, waiting for him to wake them up with his black tongued lies and the silver lining which greases his way through the world. One girl is Russian, and she – not her, but _her_ – comes into the room unexpectedly and refuses to leave. He feels odd about the disconnected connectivity she witnesses, the desire to hide under the bed and not be coaxed up for air again. His 'watch, you might learn something' is greeted by silence. The girl leaves and _she_ stays, slung low on an ottoman with hands folded over her aching belly.

"Martini?" He offers.

"No."

"Vodka?"

"That's Serena's drink."

"Tequila?"

"Do I look poor to you?"

There is where the fascination with her neck begins, as they test each other with salt (the SALT talks is how they will refer to them in front of Nate, who might get the wrong idea because he was born that way). He'd rather like to kiss her, one day, maybe when she's smiling – strange that he says kiss and not fuck. Does he...does he want to kiss her? As if. No. He tells himself this the next time he writes her name on the mirror, right before he decides to save her from her own hand at her own party with the lights down and eyes rolling. She screams as he drags her away from the bowl, fingers digging into exposed ribs, breath hot on the back of her neck.

"Do you see?" Her dress is ripped, slip exposed, will o' the wisp body revealed. "Do you see what you're doing to yourself?"

Her head is on the end of the piano nearest to the keys when he plays that time, and he decides on Schubert: a Swansong for a withering cygnet. Her tears fall on his fingers, and sometimes they seem so heavy that they might depress the keys themselves with the disjointed power they contain, amber in a tear instead of a tear born of anger.

"Do you think I'm beautiful?"

"Unfortunately."

"What?"

He looks at her, plays the wrong chord. "Unfortunately, I do."

He finds it hard to look at her when she falls asleep on top of his piano, because he keeps seeing a red dress where there isn't one and decides he must be drunk. Long hair tumbles to his fingers, dancing black and white, black and white, a cacophony of colour even in such a farce. Her body thrums with each keystroke, each breath; he traces her letters on a bare arm and despairs, because there's no way he can break it and no way it will ever, ever wash off. The skin is white, and the invisible words burn golden: seething caramel, white chocolate.

Her fingers catch his retreating one, still fast asleep. She clutches on and they stay, infant and adult, and yea though she walks through the valley of the shadow of death, she should fear no evil.

Devil's got her back.

_Fin._


	7. And Every Breath We Drew Was Hallelujah

_**I know how trite this is - seriously. I know how many people have vidded or written about or covered this song, but it was on the radio while I was cooking and inspired the crap outta me. There really is no better way to achieve enlightenment, according to my sister (whose favourite song is The Smiths' 'There Is A Light That Never Goes Out', which extols the virtues of you and your beloved getting hit by a double-decker bus) than to listen to the likes of Leonard Cohen.  
Enjoy.**_

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**And Every Breath We Drew Was Hallelujah**__

He used to be harder than this -

Darker.

Body says yes, mouth says no.

The fluttering wings of a heartbeat came upon him in the aftermath, when she stirred drowsily and he realised he was clinging to her like a drunken, drowning swimmer.

Feelings back in their boxes, where they belong.

Want -

What a cripple it makes of him.

**_._**

For the days when she had her secrets in her closet, ashes in her mouth.

For the days of sanctity.

For the life she chose, this one -

Emotional poverty.

For the black heart of a society wife, and not one which beats and bleeds when he is gone.

**.**

Nothing can be right like this, or easy (as if anything ever was easy).

He still can't say '_those three significant words_' to anyone other than her as anything other than just that. People wonder what he's talking about, because he can't seem to shape them when it's not her whisper he hears, her hand on his arm, caught between time and space with the car door open and her dark eyes screaming.

Walking on by when he smells her perfume is like opening a vein.

**.**

She takes up aversion therapy.

One snap: impatience (_why can't we be together? Why?_)

Two snaps: anger (_don't I deserve to be happy? Don't we?_)

Five snaps: disobedience (when she sits all night outside his penthouse with her head against the wall and doesn't dare go inside).

It gets so there is a permanent bruise around her wrist, and people frown at her long lace sleeves and the quiet turn of the head.

**.**

"Have you made something of yourself yet?" He asks spitefully, when they are forced into company and he is raw and sore from thinking of her. "Or is business at Columbia just too taxing for you to fathom?"

"Why don't you have another drink," she suggests coolly, when all he really wants to do is slam her into a wall.

**.**

Avoidance is sometimes not an option. Sometimes, she has no choice but to live the day with her eyes open -

As if anyone in New York ever has before.

He was her teacher, once, her mentor in all things erotic; they could never be on par - after all, she can list her rendezvouses on the fingers of one hand whereas he needs the entirety of a black book and the telephone directory - so they're not equals. Still, she can't help but remember the first time she was kissed _there_, touched _here_, and the delight is black tinged and fuses with the ache of regret.

**.**

If an atom was split apart on the day they died, the last corresponding pieces would be labelled _Chuck_ and _Blair_.

_Fin._**  
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	8. Only One Who Knows Your Heart

_**Warning: here be spoilers!  
It appears that Chuck begins a relationship with Raina, the daughter of his business rival/associate later this season. All I have to say is this: WHAT HAPPENED TO WAITING, YOU BASSTARD/HAT/HOLE? IF I DO NOT GET MY CHAIR WEDDING THEN I AM GOING TO HUNT YOU DOWN AND CARVE YOU UP AND SERVE YOU FOR DINNER!**__  
Enjoy._

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**Only One Who Knows Your Heart  
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She traces a line down one side of her champagne flute, watches the condensation gather on her finger with overt interest. The alcohol laces her tongue, curving across her lips when they kiss cold glass and consume. There are at least four pairs of eyes watching her, and she can't quite decide which is most worthy of her attention. She should have really brought a date - it's only form, after all - but time bombs don't tend to need backup, and she's already ticking.

"Blair."

"Chuck."

"What are you doing here?"

"Oh, you know me." She runs her tongue across her bottom lip, ostensibly to gather up any remaining traces of Krug. "I love a good brunch."

"Blair..."

"What?" A passing cater waiter receives her million watt smile and almost stumbles. "Is there some reason I ought not to be here, Chuck? Perhaps something you neglected to mention to me and which I had to find out from Gossip Girl? Something which would invalidate everything you said to me at the Saints and Sinners party?"

He grits his teeth. "Blair."

"No." Her eyes are cold. "We've played your 'maybe if we wait' game before. It's just another excuse."

"Blair -"

"No," she repeats. "Anytime I've tried to have a relationship with a normal, decent, _functioning_ human being, you've done your level best to destroy it. I'm done letting you." Her bitch is on full throttle, and she can all but feel him rising to the challenge (because when has there ever a greater aphrodisiac than war, girlfriend or no girlfriend). "Now, I'm going off to find a nice marketing analyst to chat with." His eyes flash, and she smiles. "Are you ready to play that game?"

_Fin._


	9. A Star Falls

**A Star Falls**

'_You fell out of the sky - but why did you have to fall on me? Everything was simple before you fell on me!_'

"What are you doing?" He asks her.

"I'm a princess," she replies, as if that should be obvious. "And you can only come in if your hands are clean."

He extends them before him, bare pale palms to her dark scrutiny. "Who can I be?"

"The prince?"

He wrinkles his nose. "What does he have to do?"

"Save me from the dragon."

"No." He enters the little room, almost forced to crouch down because he's grown so much. Not long now until they join the big world, he and she. "Is there anyone else?"

"There's the villain."

"What's he like?"

She cocks her head on one side, acquisitive gaze magpie bright. "He kidnaps me and takes me away to his tower."

"Fine," he says, too quickly. "I'll be him."

"You'll have to fight Nate for me."

"Alright."

"And let me go when he wins."

Her mouth looks like a flower; he can't take his eyes off it. "What if I don't want to let you go?"

This eventuality unnerves her. "You'll have to."

"But what if I win?"

A black and white movie, spooling to a stop before those young eyes. "You won't."

**.**

"What if I don't want to let you go?" He asks, quiet desperation in his tone that he can't let her see on his face.

"You'll have to."

"But what if I win?"

She runs her fingers across his lips, the reel stalling and sputtering in her eyes as the film runs out. "You won't."

_Fin._


	10. Thy Will Be Done

_**I think an awful lot of us are guilty of identifying with Blair in 3x22, because Chuck's done something reprehensible and we're women who would never want to be in that situation. I've always written from her point of view, about her feelings and her heartache; however, things are surely pretty cataclysmic for Chuck if he'll turn to Jenny for some kind of comfort. He loves Blair, he hates himself for losing her, and so he makes a terrible mistake. These are his thoughts on that great betrayal, and on pain and love in general.  
Enjoy.**_

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**Thy Will Be Done**

You hold them in your hands: pink, perfect, feathery blossoms on paper thin stems.

You're holding her in your hands: poised, perfect, feathery lashes drifting on pale cheeks, your name and your mouth on her lips as she drifts off to sleep.

You dream of her.

You wish you didn't.

You wish she hadn't made you into what you are. A wall within a wall would have been easier to remain all your life than a man, a human being with a heartbeat and enzymes and water in his lungs drowning him; how much simpler would the world have been if you'd kept your mouth shut, never offered her the chance, never let her climb that stairway to heaven and never pulled her down into hell. That's the problem, you suppose, that light meets inferno and makes you seem more fallen angel than devil in disguise. You're not redeemable, and you ought to have known.

Everyone else knew.

Not you.

It seemed a miracle, at first, that she would want you at all; and why did you want her, crave her body so badly it made you sick. Face in the glass, you see hers beside it. "_Chuck_," she whispers, when the body is gone but the feeling still remains. "_Chuck_."

Such sweetness in sin.

And you fell into grace.

If love had never existed, you know the pain would go away. You know the pain would go away – the pain of hope, which cuts you deep with every tick of the clock, the sting of her skin on your fingers both acid and balm – and that you would be free if love had never existed at all. It's a sickness, and you must cut out the tumour. You should cut out your heart and hand it to her: _here_, _see_,_ this is what I am. This is what you made me._ It's not a disease, however, with such a simple treatment plan. You need alcohol to numb the burn, smoke to cloud her face; the treatment is palliative when it's all too clear you'll be dead in a matter of hours. Why didn't she come? Does her heart, beat, ache, flash, flare, explode? Is the world grey, or do the ashes set her eyes so?

The blossoms crumble as they hit black plastic, and you feel her slap crease your face.

You sit in the dark, in silence and in sorrow, and when the candle comes you accept it instead of the sun. You shape your lips around cold, oddly flavoured creatures and pretend they're hers. You make your body sing the kyrie of a thousand deaths, and the other doesn't even stir when you breathe her name onto the empty air.

"_Blair_."

"Chuck?"

And your heart drums out righteous love and fear.

_Fin._


	11. Undomestic Bliss

**_To be honest, I just needed married C/B. One day they will be like this, and they will be one of those couples everyone secretly envies because you can hear them through the wall at three in the morning. They will take down companies instead of schoolmates, and power play will be as much as an aphrodisiac as ever and prompt week long 'vacations' to the Empire so as not to gross out the children. They will win through.  
Gosh, I'm all chock full of endgame today, aren't I?  
Enjoy._**

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**Undomestic Bliss**

_Her arms wrap around him from behind, grab a fistful of shirt, hands fisting over his sternum._

"Busy."

"Working."

_He turns her, her back against the door, skirt riding up to reveal black lace garters beneath all that conservatism._

"Later."

"After."

_Her lips part beneath his, needing, begging, silent but deadly and doomed to desire._

"Meeting."

"Conference."

_Once more, and once more, and once more again. One has never been quite enough, and they doubt it ever will be._

"Yes." She closes her eyes in ecstasy as he bursts through their front door, following hot on the heels of a white clothed table which appears to be propelling itself. "I'm starving, my feet ache and I've got fifteen hundred fabric swatches to sample and critique before tomorrow. Tell me it's something good."

"I ordered in from Daniel."

"Restaurant, I assume, not Humphrey."

He smirks. "I have three different financiers to consult, all in different time zones, a file the size of the yellow pages full of spreadsheets to look over and I had to cancel my afternoon shiatsu to talk my secretary down from a ledge. Apparently she's been feeling a little under-appreciated lately."

"So what do you propose?"

"I propose we let dinner go cold, hide every last sample and spreadsheet and have sex on the carpet."

"Deal." She sighs. "And that, Bass, is why I married you."

_The Chinese market is stable, however this in no way has a positive influence on -_

"Yes."

"Yes..."

_Mulberry in several shades and styles, a seasonal alternative to cranberry, a -_

"There?"

"There."

_This is Mr Conroy's office, leaving a message for -_

"I -"

"Love -"

"You."

"I love you too."

_Fin._


	12. Lock, Load

_**'There Might Be Blood'**** (2x09) is one of my favourite episodes because it's not about Emma - it's about Chuck and Blair. It proves not only that they can be amicable when they try, but also that there are some things which are sacrosanct and will never cease to be so: the limo means something, virginity means something (let's just discount Jenny, she was a ho in spirit), and he's still prepared to run all over New York for no apparent reason if it will help her out. Chuck sums it up in one line: 'for you, anytime', and you know he means it, that he cares. Blair, I think, would have wanted Emma to know more than just 'it should be with someone you love', so here it is: a conversation to teach one of the most important lessons of life.  
Enjoy.**_

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**Lock, Load**

"How old were you?"

Not old enough, still not old enough, still playing for time. "A little older than you."

"How long had you been together?"

She laughs. "We weren't - not in the way you mean it, boyfriend and girlfriend, making out against a locker everyday - but he knew all my secrets and I knew his. He'd test drive ideas on me and smile when I was sad. He never smiled, so that made me smile too."

The tilt of a younger face, an expectant lilt to the question. "How did it happen?"

"It wasn't as dramatic as you're imagining, I promise. We were having fun, and I...I felt free with him; it's not half so important to _feel_ important as it is to feel free, you know. He was sweet to me - too sweet - and I knew. I knew when I looked at him, and he didn't joke or smirk. I knew it was going to happen, and when he asked me if I was sure, I was."

"Did you ever regret it?"

"I told him I did, once or twice, when I was afraid of my feelings or he was. But honestly? No. Never."

The narrative seems to have satisfied, and sequins flash as she sits back. Then, "He loves you too, you know."

"Who?"

Both pairs of eyes are deceptively innocent, but one far outstrips the other. "You know who."

"How can you say that?"

She smiles, smug in the knowledge that her knowledge will score at least one point tonight, (even if there is no one counting). "Because when he looks at you - like, actually looks, in your eyes and at your face, like you matter - I think he pretends you were his first time too."

_Fin._


	13. Should You Wonder, There I'll Be

**_This began life as a sexual Draino-fest for Blair set in the future, and along the path to completion it became a star-crossed C/B fic. I would hazard its setting being shortly in the future (or what I assume to be the future), while Blair is dating Dan (much to the chagrin of myself and every other Chair fan girl who spits cravats at them as a pairing) and Chuck is dating Raina (it's such a shame to have to hate someone before you've been properly introduced, but I'm sure I'll bear it somehow). For some reason, this reminded me of 2x08 - and yes, I kind of stole some lines from Country Strong. As Ed once put it, 'leave me alone, I'm English.'  
Enjoy.  
_**

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**Should You Wonder, There I'll Be**

His eleven o'clock arrives precisely on time, the lace tops of her stockings peeking out from the slit in her perfectly pressed pencil skirt. Her heels are sky high, her hair is swept up to bare her neck, and her white blouse borders on translucent indecency. He runs his tongue over his dry lips and swallows.

"What are you doing here, Blair?"

"I'm your eleven o'clock," she replies chirpily, folding into the couch like a graceful flat-pack. "I have a proposal for you."

"Hence the dossier?"

"Hence the dossier." She crosses her legs, and he's pretty sure he just died. "I have something original; unique. Something that will separate the Empire from the Plaza and the boys –" She sweeps back a stray curl, letting her fingers linger on the delicate flesh of her throat. "From the men."

He is vaguely cognisant of the fact that she makes some kind of business pitch in the hour that follows – something about tailor made packages and deadly sins that could be promising – but he's more focused on the press of her lips as they move, crimson on scarlet, the slide of her thighs as she shifts, the deep V as she leans forward and offers a rabbit hole straight down the front of her shirt. There's certainly something illegal about the line of her clavicle through the thin fabric, the swift dart of tongue between her teeth and her eyes: always dark, always heavy-lidded, always teasing and coaxing with her hand on the red leather file as if to emphasise its exoticism. Some of her plans may have been groundbreaking, and some may not, and he neither knew nor cared.

"So?"

Sixty minutes are all it takes for a carefully constructed world to come crashing down.

"Take down your hair," he asks in a way which is not a question.

'_Blow out your candle._'

Her pupils are holes, black; burning. They seem to consume the space around them as she removes the clip, shaking the remainder loose with a coquettish toss of her head and sweeping scent, perfume at him in waves that steal instead of shock and bloom like flowers. Who knows what prompted him to ask and see if she would give; but memory is a driving force, of it in his fingers and his fist, tangled with his own or sweeping his chest. It's hardly sacrilege to imagine doing so now, Lady Godiva in her brazenness with her cheek against his, one more time...one more time.

"What do you want, Blair?"

She looks back at him, her face a mirror of his own, lust mingling with omnipresent calculation. "Nothing."

"You've been playing all morning," he counters. "Don't stop now."

"I'm here to petition you."

"You're here to proposition me."

"You're not worth my time."

"Then why waste it?"

He stands as if to show her out, as if she might follow his lead (_ever_). She ignores him, pulls on her lip and says nothing.

"It's been too long," he tells her. "And I can't go all the way for you. You have to meet me halfway this time."

Her palms are scalding as she presses them to her face, pulling back her hair, bathing her pale cheeks with warmth as she looks down, silent, shaking her head. Her spine curves as if under a weight, and then she raises her head so slowly that the movement could be documented – frame by frame – and still barely be called motion.

"Is it worth it?" She whispers. "The price we pay?"

"Halfway. That's all I need."

'_I have you. That_'_s all I need._'

"Why do I have to say it out loud?"

"To make it real."

"I want you," she says tremulously, lip quivering like a wounded child. "And I can't have you."

_Three words, eight letters._

_i-w-a-n-t-y-o-u_

_i-l-o-v-e-y-o-u_

Halfway._  
_

"Why did you come?" He asks.

"Because I need to move past you. I have to. I _have_ to."

These words are repeated as they stagger to the bedroom, not kissing – not yet – just foreheads together, breathing slowly, original sin lying glossy on their one skin. He only kisses her after – when all the lipstick and lies have been bitten and smudged away – when she closes her eyes and sighs, because the drums have stopped pounding and ringing in her ears. He can't sleep when she sleeps, so he sits on the edge of the bed and feels the gentle tugging, the seductive and horrible sensation of his heart being pulled open like a stillborn blossom.

"So this is why your cell was off."

He doesn't turn. "Not now."

"When would be more convenient, after round two? The entire living room looks like a yellow brick road pointing straight to your libido, Chuck."

"I can't deal with you now."

"Doesn't she have a boyfriend?"

"Yes."

Her eyes shred his already raw back, raking afresh down the torn lines. "Well, that explains everything, doesn't it?"

He waits until she's gone to crawl into bed himself, half wound in a sheet with myriad body parts sticking out or shared. His hand is grasped haphazardly, half asleep, though both tired beyond measure: of the world, and of each other.

"Do you want to move past me?"

She lays her ear over his beating heart. "I don't have a choice."

_Fin._


	14. Bruise

**_Yeah, I know I've already bent your ear tonight. However, a prompt from a bizarre source reminded me of a favourite C/B quote, and it would do us all good to remember that, once upon a time, Chuck almost died for the little piece of Blair he could still hang on to.  
Enjoy.  
_**

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**Bruise**

'_I'm sorry._'  
'_I'm not. I got to spend a little more time with you._'  
– Blair Waldorf & Chuck Bass, Gaslit.

There's a time lag, a lapse in the space between the now and the then, the here and the hereafter. He's spent his entire life trying to fathom why each day blurs into the next, why each night is like the night before and the night that follows. He's watched clocks and calendars, he's watched years turn and decades end, and yet the secret eludes him: what is it about time – the slow tick-tocking, the never-ending spirals of hands over face – that so entrances and divides? What is it about the finality of an ending that makes the interim that much sweeter? Each moment may pulse like blood beneath the skin, but that doesn't mean any particular instance could halt his heartbeat.

_Monaco_: the sun blazes, and he's not sure if he's alive.

_Tuscany_: sand, pouring through his fingers, and he's not there.

_Thailand_: darkness, filled with soft emptiness to drown the deeper dark.

_Prague_.

The truth is he's been lying to himself, born a liar, raised by a liar to be a liar. His head knows nothing but his heart knows less, his soul is non-existent but who cares; he's a swinger, a party animal, a dark horse, a black sheep. Who he is does not entail reflection, basking in the silent seconds between before and after.

Who he is should never know _between_.

_Between_ is monotony.

_Between_ is the end of him.

But the silly thing is, as he feels his heartbeat thundering in his ears and clings to the beginning even as his fingers grasp the end, he knows he'd trade every moment of before and after for just one more second, one more minute, one more smile or one more kiss or even one more knowing look, the ones he used to hate because they seemed to indicate possession: _I know you and I own you. I'm here. I don't run._ One word, one sound, three syllables – anything of the _between._

_Monaco, Tuscany, Thailand, Prague._

_Scotch, absinthe, Absolut, gin._

_Victrola, Palace, Empire, Gimlet._

The silly thing is that he'd trade it all for just a little more time with her.

_Fin._


	15. XX, XY

_**I was watching 3x18 (yes, I know I'm a masochist) when I first noticed Chuck's comment about having played ****the balloon**** game before. At first I thought he was innuendo-ing and got busy trying to figure out what he meant, but then it occurred to me that, as in Glee, they could have played that game in Sex Ed in order to encourage abstinence (the idea of Chuck being abstinent is like the idea of Serena covering up her van der Boobsens: it will happen only when the planets align once every millennium, if at all). This was a lot of fun to write (pre-series C/B is like the Cocoa Devil: 'sinfully delicious'), though I did steal some lines from the show to mix 'n' match for effect.  
Enjoy.**_

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**XX, XY**

"...as well as practising safe sex, it is also important to remember the value of abstinence and waiting until _you_'_re_ ready, not until he - or she - is."

The headmistress raised her eyebrows at the proposed pairings, then shook her head at the attendant walking around the room with her arms full of balloons. "Mr Bass and Miss van der Woodsen, I think not. Miss van der Woodsen with Mr Nelson, please, and Mr Bass...with Miss Waldorf. Mr Archibald, you may choose your own partner."

Blair scowled as Chuck sloped towards her, folding her arms subconsciously across the front of her crisp white blouse and feeling the oddest desire to slink away and hide. Chuck's fingers were wound about with the last balloon, the only red; the colour looked like an accusation, and it made her stomach clench. She kept her eyes fixed on Nate and shook her head when she was offered the scarlet tribute, unwilling to wrap her lips around anything with his ready wit in the vicinity.

"Why don't you do it? You're full enough of hot air to make it float."

Chuck smirked before obliging - a little of his mouth twisting to void it of any real appreciation - and Blair cursed herself for letting him get to her. They did as instructed: bodies pressed to opposite sides of the static ridden rubber, moving almost in time to the music with their hands on each other's shoulders. Her eyes narrowed as his grip shifted downward to her waist, mapping the curve of her body with his handspan.

"You'll never last this out if you're going to do that."

He snorted. "Please, Waldorf. Barely touching you is hardly enough to turn anyone on, let alone me."

Blair found herself unexpectedly put out. "Why?"

"Because some men like to see what they're buying, not have it gift wrapped in five different chastity belts labelled 'soon to be property of Nate Archibald'."

"You think I should be more like her." She jerked her head towards Serena, towards the tiny pleated skirt and long bare legs.

"In a word? Yes."

"Never."

"Then you will never have me."

"As if I would want to."

The look he gave her was slanted, intrigued. "But it irritates you that I'm not attracted to you, doesn't it? It gets under your skin -" He ran a fingertip slowly down her arm, and she gasped as the resulting static conducted through him and into her. "Everyone has to want you, don't they? To be you, to be near you, to be with you, even to throw yoghurt on you and take your place on the Met steps...personally, I can't understand the fascination."

"Really?" Blair felt equals parts adrenaline and incredulity mix in her veins as she looped her arms around his neck, idly running her fingers through the thick hair which, unlike Nate's, was only just close enough to brushing his collar to ruin the silhouette. "Chuck," she said softly, pulling on her bottom lip and subtly wriggling her hips to narrow the space between them. "Won't you like me just a little?"

Chuck looked back at her, at the cherry blossom lips which were now blushing wine and at the new gleam in her eye. "Well," he said. "Look who just got a little interesting."

_Pop._

_Fin._


	16. Gift

**_To be honest, I even want them to be in pain just so they can be feeling something for each other; five seconds of stilted dialogue just won't cut it.  
Enjoy._**

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**Gift**

She's a loaded gun with his best interests at heart; perhaps that's worse. Perhaps if she meant to shoot him or stab him or scratch his eyes out, it would be different. As it is, every last injury she inflicts is out of love. As it is, every drop of blood spilt is for them; perhaps that's better.

Sometimes, human care and comfort is all that's needed. It strips away the vicissitude, the vice of their daily darkness, and makes the world that little bit more palatable. She pours tears – beautiful tears – onto his sheets when the door creaks in the middle of the night and the smaller body moves in beside his. He turns over (of course he does), and lets the tremors tell him about her day and her life so far. There's a safe zone in that little world of bed and bathos, where it doesn't matter who's with whom or who's done what to whomsoever. Sometimes she needs to cling to the remnants of her old life, and that's okay.

Sometimes she needs to cling to him, and that's alright too.

He never forgets her face: each look, each expression of derision or desire or destiny forming slowly, licking up her features like fire. He never forgets the sideways looks across the room when she knows he's looking. They only play his game – the bathroom wall, the doorway, the floor – because she knows she can't take his hand anymore. She'll take that closeness, that fleeting closeness, tinged and mixed with the bright lights in her head. She'll take that little piece of what they used to be.

She'll take just a little, and he'll give just a little more.

They don't speak often, and when they do it's to trade barbs or pleasantries. But when they see, or catch sight of, or spy, every layer is stripped away. There's a beating heart across the room, bleeding, breaking, not a real live human in a shell of flesh and bone. There's a counterpart, an other half, one part of an intrinsic formula that's written all over their skins, coding for the end of the game, the end of the dance, the end of deception and waking in a sweat with bed empty, hands empty. Peel back the lightness and the soul is black, sanctified because there's only one who can sin worse. Sometimes, he doesn't turn over, and just feels the smaller body breathe against his back.

It's okay.

It's not everything, but it'll do.

_Fin._


	17. That's What You Get

**_I am sick - literally, the kind of sick which confines you to bed and an endless parade of Patrick Dempsey movies so you can pretend he's your doctor and is going to make you better solely with his McDreaminess. Even typing fast is making me dizzy...but anyhoo, the great and good _SaturnineSunshine_ wrote a tragedy that I felt I needed to respond to (sorry C, but you're the wind beneath my wings, and that's just the way it is). Besides, Gossip Girl is on tonight, and I had to mark the return of our favourite devilish duo...and I was at a wedding this weekend, and I've always wanted to say 'I object!' even if I actually don't.  
Title is from Paramore's 'That's What You Get' (no surprises there).  
Enjoy.  
_**

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**That's What You Get When You Let Your Heart Win**

The light falls just so on the slope of her clavicle, her shoulders; she's a strange sight and a strange sort of bride, escorted up the aisle by two on each side, her maid of honour bringing up the rear with an odd smile shining on her lovely face. Sunlight streams in through the high windows.

Today is a perfect day.

She reaches her groom, whose lacrosse team good looks are a glossy foil for her own dark mystery. His face looks like it's about to split apart with glee (with satisfaction, or self-satisfaction), but hers is obscured by the veil. Her heartbeat is ticking, thundering, ringing in her ears as the officiant begins, welcoming them all 'on this joyous occasion' for 'the joining of two hearts and two families'. He asks, almost jokingly, if anyone knows 'of any lawful impediment why they two may not be legally married'. There is a cough from the back of the room.

A very deliberate cough.

She sucks in her breath.

"No."

Their eyes meet, and she telegraphs her edict: _you wouldn_'_t_.

He smirks: _I would_.

The maid of honour winks at an usher.

The usher winks back.

There is another deliberate cough, and then the crowd ruffles like waves on the sea as one of their number stands, smoothing down his flawless suit – and all whispers of _is it him_? _Is it him_? cease immediately, because who else but Chuck Bass would wear a suit in that particular shade? – and shuffling the sheaf of papers in his hands. The bride is still frozen, though her right hand is twisting her engagement ring very fast, so fast that the diamond refracts the light of day in a thousand glittering shards.

"Ladies and gentlemen," he says grandly. "I know of an impediment."

The lacrosse player clenches his fists. The speaker smiles.

"It appears, according to these documents, that a property transaction was made, notarised and legalised only yesterday afternoon. It seems that some extremely philanthropic person has bequeathed Ms Blair Cornelia Waldorf –" His tongue hovers over her name. "A fifty percent stake in the Empire Hotel, address 44 West 63rd Street, New York. However –" She looks so beautiful, standing there in her wedding dress, but he can't help but think she'd look far better in the rags of one. "This stake is registered to Ms Waldorf for only as long as she keeps that name. There is only one exception."

"Really?"

It's the first time she's spoken, and she doesn't sound like a blushing bride. She sounds like she could cut the wedding cake with just one flick of that sharp tongue. She flings back her veil (and elicits a gasp) to stare him down properly, hands planted on her chiffon swathed hips.

"And what exception would that be?"

"You know perfectly well."

"I'm afraid not."

"You really want everyone to know?"

_A challenge_.

She eyes him coolly, arches an eyebrow. "Of course."

_Accepted_.

This elicits a dramatic sigh, and the lacrosse player slowly begins to flush.

"Let me be a little more transparent: there are in fact several exceptions, only a few of which I will list here. The stake in the hotel is registered only to Blair Waldorf or one of the following: Blair Bass, Blair Waldorf-Bass, Blair Waldorf Bass without a hyphen, Blair Waldorf under the legal name Bass, etc."

"Babe." The lacrosse player grips the white satin of her gloved arm. "What is this? Who the hell is this guy?"

She shoots a glare down the room at him, and he winks.

"Hey, Jack?"

"It's John. Only she calls me Jack."

"Ah, yes." He unnecessarily dusts down one lapel. "Well, as much as I'd like to continue to indulge your fantasy about that cute nickname, let me be frank: she calls you Jack because when she's screwing you, she likes to imagine that it's me, and she sometimes forgets to the extent that she almost says my name instead. So, in order for our beloved Waldorf to cover her tracks –" He receives another glare. "She calls you something that's halfway between my name and yours, and pretends it's because she loves you. Blair?"

"Blair?" John/Jack repeats.

Blair – who feels like she has her name back, Blair instead of 'babe' or 'sweetie' or 'doll' – looks around her. First of all she observes Serena's smile, and sends her a look that says: _I_'_m going to kill you for being even a tiny part of this later_. She looks at her parents, at the mother who is shaking her head with something between embarrassment and mirth, at the three slightly confused and still smiling fathers. Then she looks down the aisle at Chuck, who looks taller somehow, the light hitting one elegant angle of his face just the same way it's hitting hers.

He doesn't need any more invitation than that.

So the groom watches as the strange, smirking man in the purple and black tuxedo walks calmly up the aisle, picks up his bride, and walks calmly back down the aisle again. Halfway down, he turns.

"You'll get over her," he says. "Talk to Archibald."

"Serena!"

The maid of honour raises her eyes from careful contemplation of the floor as her currently captured friend raises one arm.

"Catch."

Serena suddenly finds her arms full of bouquet, overwhelmed by a burst of almost purple blushing peonies. Her eyes find the usher's once again.

Nate smiles.

The sunlight is warm on this outlandish couple as they exit onto the street, her very much on her dignity even though she's just walked (or been carried) out of her wedding by a former (for the purposes of the couples' counsellor she and John/Jack enlisted, anyway) flame who has just discovered that the best fatwa is one where millions of dollars are at stake. It's horrible that she cares enough to want to keep the whole damn thing in his name, to understand the point he's making: it's not his 'beloved Empire' – as she once put it – without being her home too.

They reach the pavement and the waiting, purring black car, and Blair finds her voice.

"If you even think about having sex with me, Bass, I'll burn every piece of Oscar de la Renta in your closet."

Chuck laughs. "You underestimate me, Waldorf."

"How?"

"When have I ever had to think about it?"

_Fin._


	18. Still Life

**_I don't ship Dair, and I never will. I do, however, ship Blair being happy without having to sacrifice something for once, and Chuck deserves to be alone right now, at least for a little while. The best thing Raina ever did was put up her hair and dump his sorry arse - but at the same time, he always has and always will be the most effed up GG character. That's why I ship endgame: because in the entire world and island of Manhattan, there's only one person who accepts him for the Basstard he can be and loves him through it all.  
If the very mention of Dair makes you vomit, you probably shouldn't read this (although it is endgame Chair).  
Written, with love, to Imogen Heap's 'Hide And Seek'.  
Enjoy._**

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**Still Life**

There's a horrible ease to falling in love after you've done it once. After the pleasure of first love has faded, any other game of hide and seek will do. She finds hide and seek with Dan Humphrey oddly soothing. It's balm for the bullet wound in her chest.

It's not a solution.

It's not a cure.

But it helps. It helps to know that there is another person who will follow her star in the sky, will care if she shoots or falls. She loves him in the gentle, soft, half timorous way she loved Nate, and she hangs onto him with her fingertips; it's no use wasting tears because his jaw is the wrong shape beneath her hands as they kiss. She needs to grow up, find an answer, find the question she's asking.

To be honest, she needs to stop hiding behind curtains if she doesn't want what lies beyond to scare her.

She doesn't dream in film noir with Dan Humphrey, but at least she can watch old movies with her feet beneath his and her head on his sweater in a place which is comfortable and doesn't make her eyes sting. He runs his fingers through her hair and makes some comment about the scene, and she retorts and lets him be happy. She's halfway to being there, as much as she doesn't see sparks with Dan Humphrey, because she knows his hand isn't tight enough around her heart to squeeze it and make her ribs crack.

He doesn't think they're fated, so he doesn't need to take a running jump and hope he crashes into her. He doesn't need to lie (though he does sometimes, and they have silly fights over her job at W and his writing which end with her face pressed into his chest and somebody laughing).

But she's not Blair Waldorf.

She's not the Blair Waldorf who knows herself, who knows where the lines are and where she can't cross.

And she sees him – the real _him_, the boy from the black room with lights flickering across his face – on the street sometimes, and wants to be sixteen again. She wants to show him her bare skin and remind him that they don't need Venice or Paris or anything else at all, really; do his lips move, or does she imagine words whispered across the lanes of traffic - across the poles of distance between Manhattan and Brooklyn and everything she has and he's failed to become.

Someone put a bullet in him, once.

She cried.

His eyes are sad, but he shot her first.

_Fin._


	19. Self From Self

**_I'll just say it now: SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER! If you don't want to read spoilers about forthcoming episodes of Gossip Girl, you should probably leave now or forever hold your peace (or something like that).  
SPOILER!  
Now, to those of you still here: set photos have shown Blair toting around a Harry Winston yellow diamond engagement ring the size of my head, apparently courtesy of Louis. I, as a Chair fangirl, began to get very irate until I was spoiler-ed on Tumblr that supposedly Chuck rushes to her side with some kind of speech prepared and stops her from jetting off to Monaco and becoming Mrs Attractive Extra. It was upon that premise that I decided to write this vignette, and got rather weepy in the process. Don't judge me, I'm obsessed.  
Enjoy.  
_**

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**Self From Self**

'_Gravitation is not responsible for people falling in love_.'  
- Albert Einstein.

"I'll only be a minute."

She stretches up on her toes, kisses her childhood dream swiftly and sweetly on the cheek, follows him out of the room with her smile. The mouth she turns to face his face is closed, shut, tight like a trap.

"What do you want?"

Sunshine, glittering on the wrong finger.

"So it's true."

"Not that it's any of your business, but yes." The fingers on that hand flex, and she passes her thumb over the diamond to polish it.

"And this is your way of getting back at me."

"This has nothing to do with you!"

Her eyes are bright, brighter than all that gloss on her hand. He thinks there might be tears lurking there, caught behind a landslide of rejection and wounded pride. She pushed herself away from him but he flung her out further, spinning her into space and allowing her to continue to circle around him in a defunct little orbit which brought no pleasure, only pain. Those two should always be mixed, he feels, never felt alone.

"You're really going," he says, and now her cheeks are wet.

"I'm going."

That _thing_ cuts into his palm as he enfolds her small hands almost to the wrist, plugging her into his thoughts as far as he can. "Please don't leave with him."

"Why? Give me a reason." Her pretty mouth twists. "And 'because I love you' doesn't count."

"What else is there?"

Even if these words weren't repeated, they'd still be his; what else is there to say, what further validation can there be? There is nothing greater than the floodwall in his chest, holding him up, no greater power than the rage behind it.

"There is nothing else. _Nothing_." She looks down as more tears fall, back up as one shivers on her lash and then on his knuckle. "Because he loves me too, and I actually believe that means something to him."

"It means something to me – it means everything to me!"

"Really? When you rope me into helping you win hearts and then you go ahead and lose your own and there is _nothing_ I can do, because as far as you can see, this is my fault? I wanted time, I needed space, I didn't want to be your right hand or your left leg or whatever else you needed me for. I would have done anything for you!" Her thoughts are smothering her, and her pulse bangs beneath his fingers. "I did the worst for you."

"And we moved past that."

"To what? To clandestine corners or the life of a Stepford wife? No. No."

She shrinks as he pulls sharply on her hands, brings her close to him so she can see the ferocity, the lion which is tearing itself apart from the inside. "You think that isn't what he's going to give you? You think that's what I want for you?" He almost laughs. "I would have given you anything you wanted!"

"I don't want to be _given_ anything, don't you understand?"

"No. No, I don't." He lets go of her, paces, because now this room is his cage and he's climbing the walls in his mind. "Because every time I'm not here, you look for someone who can give you something – the chance to lower yourself, the chance to better yourself, the chance to be anyone other than yourself – and I can't see why you would want to be anyone but you!"

"Why? Why would you think that?"

"Because I fell in love with you."

There is silence as they both look at their shoes, at each other's shoes, at the acres of floor stretching between them. She tries to laugh, and he watches her.

"It sounds so silly; 'falling in love', like one day you just trip over the person you're supposed to be with."

"Maybe that's how it's meant to be."

Her eyes snap to his. "I didn't trip over you."

"You might as well have."

More silence.

"I am..." She inhales, exhales, tries again, swipes angrily at her tears with the back of her hand. "Without you or with you or with Louis, I'm still..."

"I told you," he says, and then the cage has shrunk enough that he's holding her hands still over his beating heart, letting her look away and look all around and anywhere but at him, because knowing that he's alive and that it's her driving his body is very nearly enough to kill her. "I told you I'm not Chuck Bass without you. I never asked you to say it back, but it was always a given: you're not Blair Waldorf without me."

"I –"

"You're not a Humphrey."

"But I –"

"And you're not a Grimaldi either."

She raises dark eyes to his dark eyes, tilting her chin. "I'm not a Bass either."

"Shhh." He runs his fingers beneath her chin, traces the line of her jaw, and his mouth aches as he kisses her. There it is: the pleasure and the pain, pleasure from the butterfly pressure of her lips against his, pain from the salt he can taste from the tears he provoked. Her eyes close and his do too, and he thinks perhaps life is a cage in itself, but he doesn't mind so much if he gets to share captivity with her.

"We're Chuck and Blair," he tells her as they part, still so close that each word hovers on her lips as they brush against his.

She trembles, kisses him briefly, quickly, bittersweet sharply. "Blair and Chuck."

The walls close in around them, but above them there is breathing space.

_Fin._


	20. Dark Before Dawn

**_I don't really know what this is. The title expresses, I suppose, my belief that the queen and her dark knight - failing diamonds or hearts, I always see Chair as the Queen and Knave of Spades - will be together someday, somehow. It's a little about Blair's understanding of Chuck, and a little about the way she sees herself. It's about sex. It's about symmetry, mirrors between two people. It's about comparing one love with another, and dreams, and whether your dreams or your love are more important.  
Enjoy.  
_**

* * *

**Dark Before Dawn**

He was what she knew, and what she knew of him was calculation.

The way he worked was non-linear, always – with Chuck Bass one could begin with the cut and thrust of an action and end with foreplay, with the dark growl of suggestion which set her teeth on edge and her skin singing. He liked not finishing what he'd started and leaving her to dwell on it, but he was still deliberate; every time since the first time and ever after, horizontal or vertical or free-floating in some little world of their own, everything he did was deliberate. It was what made him different for her, special, that he'd already decided to put them to the test before there had even consciously been a 'they' in her mind.

She liked it when he was deliberate.

She didn't like it when he was frantic.

The truth was that he was like her, deep down, and being frantic denoted panic, and panic denoted – not that he was lying to her (let him try to lie to her, and not watch her smell it out) – but at least that he was concealing some truth which would otherwise come out and hurt her, crawl into her belly and nest. He had deep and dirty secrets, and there was only so far she could dive.

It scared her.

That was when the nails came out, and the teeth (not that they didn't usually anyway). That was when _sex_, _fucking_, _screwing_, _making love_ drained her and left her empty rather than glowing. Sometimes, it felt like he was so desperate to protect her from whatever was festering inside him that he tried to touch her for as short a time as possible, only seeking her warmth and her familiarity and her rhythm like a child without a mind of its own. If he had his way, he would leave her alone, and burn alone.

She wouldn't let him.

And that was why it scared Blair when the pattern became linear, when words ran to lips ran to bodies ran to aftershocks. He couldn't deal with ease so she refused to, and the linear lifestyle lined up problems which made her reminisce about Nate and their linear problems, Marcus and their filthy, abhorrent linear problems, Cameron and their never-to-be or not-to-be linear problems. She missed being wound up before she was ready, snarled at before she was ready, hated being the enemy when she herself wanted to be instead of when she wanted to be a heroine. She liked her topsy-turvy world. It was safe in her topsy-turvy world, where she was used to eyes in the dark, still looking at her, for her after so long. It was as safe as it was dangerous, a world where two cars colliding could hand you an empire and a matter of blood could take it all away.

It wasn't topsy-turvy, someone putting a crown on her head.

It was fate.

Linear.

Coincidental.

It was a simple matter that everyone fell in love with the world's Blair Waldorf: selfish, glamorous, the secret dreamer, ever scheming. That girl ran to straight lines, fuses, simplicity. She hated and preferred the sick one, the one who hid in dark corners, the one who sometimes needed to save rather than be saved. She liked being the beauty required to break a beast.

Her reflection was wonderful in the gilded mirror at the prince's party, but she smiled when he, the uninvited knight without armour gripped her neck and wasn't frantic, was still touching her.

Didn't they have all the time in the world, after all?

_Fin._


	21. Dissociation

_**I think Blair's refusal to make terms with Chuck after he manipulated her and Dan shows just how much she's grown up and he hasn't – before she'd do anything for him simply so he wouldn't be alone. I wouldn't want the following to happen for real, but my Chair shipping heart couldn't help but write it.  
Enjoy.**_

* * *

**Dissociation**

She held him when his father died, and thought he was a man. He wasn't, of course – he was the boy to her girl, lost and wandering, using her as an anchor or an island on a wide empty sea. He was a man in so many other ways that she thought he must be one, but he was playing at it the way she was playing at being a queen (because deep down, she's a princess, and she needs to be woken up).

So he asked her to be a princess.

She'd rather be a little princess with morals than a real one left cold.

Still, it's impossible to deny the past. Try and deny that the rain is falling, or that cars will skid and crash on black ice; never deny that you loved, once (that you have, that you will...that you do).

But what is the cost of being grown up, of being a woman instead of a girl? It comes at the price of turmoil, at the price of kisses worth the missing, at the cost of forgetting the boy with the bright eyes because the man he isn't sometimes makes her sick. They've spent their lives twisting each other around their fingers, playing, but that's not the way it's supposed to be. She wants him to stop playing, to be the prince to her princess, to wake her up like he's supposed to instead of tricking the witch and killing the thorns and stopping her from sleeping in the first place. She needs to open her eyes and see, but she'd never exchange truth for consciousness.

He stands alone, regal, empty, and she hates that.

So she puts on the beautiful dress, and she glides into place like she owns the place, and she says not a word and doesn't look him in the eye. "This means nothing," she tells him sharply, and the curve of his fingers over her spine _will_ not, _must_ not break her. This is a visage to another lie (or truth), and she has to hold her own against the power of the past. They have to stop breaking, there are already too many pieces on the floor.

They are immortalised: proud, vulnerable, black.

_Charles__ Bass, entrepreneur._

_Blair Waldorf, associate_.

But she turns her head as they freeze to be framed and it catches, his skin against hers, like flint and kindling. She can't help but hope that one day – someday – dungeons and dragons will be waiting for her after all.

_Fin._


	22. Mea Culpa

_**Damn OTP, making me cry. **_**Mea Culpa**_** = 'my fault', excuse the pig Latin.  
Enjoy.  
**_

* * *

**Mea Culpa**

'_My outsides look cool  
My insides are blue  
Every time I think I'm through  
It's because of you._'  
– Unpretty, TLC.

The problem is that he's still connected:

Emotionally.

Physically, tied by a thread that doesn't break, no matter how hard he pulls.

His hands shake, and they always have. He should know better than to push against the lock, to use his hard won breaking and entering skills to force an issue rather than open a door to waiting arms. He lays his palm against the door, and he can hear her – or feel her, what's the difference – and all he wants is to tear it down. She radiates through the wood, cosmic rays, and there's another bullet stopping his breath.

The problem is that she can't grow out of it:

The fear.

The anxiety that the world is about to come tumbling down around her.

There are tears ruining her perfect face, but that hardly matters (because she's never been pretty, has she). She should still know better than to waste water on what can't be changed, to spend her time pushing toward or pulling away from the future and the past. She's curled in a corner, dress fanning out against the tiles – a masterpiece, unlike the mess she's made of herself – and all she wants is to believe.

"You didn't."

"I didn't," she affirms, watching her bare fingers.

"Good."

Her voice is hoarse. "Go away, Chuck. I can't deal with everything I say or do meaning something to you."

He ignores her, sits down beside her, doesn't touch. "I pity any girl who isn't you tonight."

She closes her eyes. "Didn't you hear me? I can't handle you."

"So I'm not me. Pretend I'm Nate, or Serena, or Humdrum Humphrey if it helps." He laughs, and she doesn't reciprocate. "So you're not you. So you're Audrey Hepburn, and I'm Cary Grant."

"I hate Charade."

"At least I know you're alive in there."

She looks up to the ceiling, still bent out of shape, still the walking wounded, still a broken doll. "Why is it always the same?" She whispers. "Every time and with every one, someone else has to decide if I'm worthy. The Colony Club, the Whitney Committee, la Table Élitaire, and now every Grimaldi in the Northern hemisphere. I thought..." He watches a tear descend, rolling down her cheek like the diamond that would make her his (in a once upon a time, happily ever after world he has no idea where to find). "I thought I would be enough this time."

"Roman Holiday," he says.

"What?"

"You're that Audrey."

"Explain."

He tugs on his lapel, almost catches her smile out of the corner of his eye. "You're a princess without Gregory Peck in there. You've always been a queen without anyone's help or loyalty. You don't need to validation to shine." So he hates himself a little, for loving her long after he should have given up. "They can't make you any less Blair Waldorf – and like I said, I pity any girl who isn't you tonight."

"Why?"

"Because it hurts to look at you."

She turns her face to catch his slipping profile, the black-gold eyes that hold her still even now, when her heart is as still as it ever could be. Her smile is small but true, and his head whips around to catch it. The moment is longer than it ought to be, because they're sitting on a bathroom floor and he's the boy she kissed once and she's the girl he used to see with other people. It's always hurt to look at him, but she's always done it; she's always been a masochist.

Pain is a fair trade off for the pleasure.

He touches her mouth.

Just two fingers.

The pain and the pleasure.

"If I swear never to tell anyone, and not to use it against you, and not to hold it over your head, and not to use it as grounds for your divorce for Gregory Peck in ten years time –"

She laughs.

"Yes," she says. "Yes, you can."

The consequence is that he kisses her, too gently to be the real him, too carefully for the real her. She moves slower than an unknown girl in a slip, sliding across leather cushions, but this time she reciprocates; she doesn't let anything just _happen_ because she kisses him back, and her tears wet his face, and he lays his hands lightly on the tour de force that is her hair and doesn't let her get too close and spoil it. Their bodies can't touch, so their hearts won't touch. It still hurts, eyes closed, not looking, knowing that she's living another lie but that it keeps her living, holds her upright because he is life, life and love. He isn't quite sure what she is – perhaps the worst mistake of his life, or perhaps the best.

She dances through the royal court afterward, because she owns them.

He leans on the bar and reminds her silently that she always has.

_Fin._


	23. Jägerbomb

**_For anyone unfamiliar with the term, a Jägerbomb is a depth charge cocktail made by dropping a shot of Jägermeister into a glass of Red Bull. I am infamous for not being able to drink one all in one go, and they are infamous for being the party drink of teenagers - I was out at a birthday party last night as well as re-watching some GG, hence the inspiration. This piece is set in 1x13, after Blair has left the bar that a wonderfully pink cardigan-ed Chuck is being cruel in, and when you see his eyes once she's gone...I don't think he expected her to let him go so easily.  
Enjoy.  
_**

* * *

**Jägerbomb**

'_I'll keep a light on  
All the rest have  
The rest have blown  
I'll keep your bed warm  
And the stillness keeps me  
Where'd we go_?'  
– Every Light Has Blown, South.

'_A further concern is the effect that the stimulant-depressant combination has upon the heart._'  
– Wikipedia article on the Jägerbomb cocktail.

Bridges burn in the night between then to now, now to forever – God, he's young. He's so young that he doesn't even mark the changing of the seasons, except to comment on the colours of the leaves. He's so young that he doesn't understand what eyes and hands mean, what reaching out is. He so young that he thinks the world will wait forever, and he'll grow up to meet it.

He walks in straight lines when the leaves are falling.

He's young enough to trust that every word he says just rolls right on over, like water beneath one of those bridges he's burnt. '_I don't want you anymore_', he says, and doesn't expect her to believe it. Only...only there's a catch in her lungs, and he's turned it on and drowned her. Her hair fans out around her face as she sinks, and he knows she's still beautiful, still perfect, still untouched because never will she ever allow him to touch her again. He laid his cold fingers on her heart, and that's enough. It's enough to drown in water without worrying about snow too.

Enough for anyone to bear.

This is the way his life will run, with this girl, _this_ girl, her, she: _you don't even have me_/_I don't want you anymore_/_I can't see why anyone else would_. Except...except it's _you don't even have me, but I can have you, and that's enough to keep us together_. It's _I don't want you anymore; I need you here, needing me back_. It's _I can't see why anyone else would think you were still waiting to be rescued; I'm here, aren't I_? He's pretty sure he can't save her, not when he's supposedly too young to buy a drink.

That doesn't mean anyone else should get the chance.

Chuck drops a shot of something into a glass of something cold and hard, and the city lights gleam outside the window. He knows that somehow, somewhere, he's made her cry, and that's enough to blow every light. Angel wings are spread over the water where she went down; he drinks because she's watching him as she dies and God, he's too young to be in love.

_Fin._


	24. Hands

**Hands**

He loses his eyes and becomes all about his hands; she doesn't need either. She feels what he's trying to feel instinctively, laughs at him sometimes, laughs at his human hands. She's too busy being goddess-like, divine, sensing. It isn't fair, trying to feel a way back through the stigmata in his palms.

"Stop hiding," he commands beneath his breath, between his teeth, touching the small of her back as he passes by at a party where she's drinking sparkling cider instead of champagne.

And yet it's only minutes before he's blind, hands all over.

"Hello," he greets their child as he pulls up her skirt.

"Shut up," she tells him, and ignores the kick.

It tends to kick when he's around, he knows that now. All the hours of diplomacy for her stand-in far away leads to lazy afternoons, his shirt over her skin over nothing, her half asleep while his chin is propped on his fist and he's somehow crooning at it. He doesn't know why, nor what he says. Things about genius, he supposes. Good looks. True love. He finds himself treating it like an invalid, reassuring it that everything will be alright. Then there are hands, his hands, his hands all over the tiny silver threads she'll smooth flat with butters and creams. Why does he kiss them? For the same reason he croons. He fools himself that he's not sentimental.

"I'm trying to sleep."

"I'm not stopping you."

"You're waking it up."

But then his hands move downward, and he wakes her up too.

He questions what he's supposed to do with his hands when they're not on her. Create, sustain, kill. Everything is just everything nonsensical. The hands that shake hands with others aren't his hands, aren't real hands. His hands reach hers, take hers, fuse. They interlace, intertwine, fingers bending in half like strands of pale liquorice. Her nails mark the opposite side to his palms where they dig in.

She's laid up for the last month, too big to move, her pretty hands swollen. The yellow diamond lies in a ring dish with her precious heart, and he can almost feel the liquid that's puffing out her flesh.

Hands all over, yet again.

"Never still anymore."

"No. Always moving."

A kiss to her wrist, warmth instead of a darker taste of the blood beneath.

"You carry it so well."

They both know he's not supposed to be there.

He's not supposed to be at the birth, either, that's what paper fathers are for – but there he is, holding and fearing pink downy skin and brightness. Those penetrating blue eyes don't disconcert him, they'll turn a deep and mysterious brown soon enough. It fits in his hands, the palms curved to make a cradle. It is huge and it is tiny. It is everything, every need, every scent, every function.

"Stop hiding," he commands beneath his breath, gaze rapt with no hope of escape from the pink. The shapes. The sounds.

She glances at the ring dish.

There is only one thing left in it.

"Stop hiding," he repeats, not asking because he knows it's only a matter of time. It's only a matter of time until he's blind again, defunct senses lost in the shade of her hair, hands all over.

_Fin._


	25. I'll Finally Sleep, I'll Finally

**I'll Finally Sleep (I'll Finally)  
**

It's raining, and he's standing on the side of the street opposite her awning. The car draws up, the door opens, she exits. The skirt of her gown trails wetly on the sidewalk. She catches his eye, and each deliberate blink is how many minutes he has left before she has to call security.

She calls him a stalker, but that doesn't explain how often he ends up on the floor of her bathroom with a towel for his wet hair, his driver called in advance.

He's sometimes at the airport, reading a newspaper. This stock has gone down, that share had risen; they don't announce private planes, but the hustle of paparazzi tells him when she's due to arrive. She wears sunglasses more and more and keeps her head down, not smiling for the cameras. The limelight, once her only goal in life, has blocked out the sunlight and bleached her skin blank. He folds his newspaper, drinks his grey, overpriced coffee and leaves only when she does.

The bad pictures of her go away. He pays well to make them go away.

And rain or blue skies, he stands on the side of the street opposite her awning.

"Why do you do it?"

"To make sure she gets home safe," he replies.

His car tails hers, his footsteps dog hers, but she can't turn her head. He's just a ghost, stepping where she steps, and if she were to turn and ask the same question, he'd disappear.

She provides a towel for his wet hair, an advance call to his driver.

Then she curls up on her bathmat in the place where the rain fell, and looks forward to blue, blue skies.

_Fin._


End file.
